A boat full of carbs

ford2600

What kind of half arsed cult is this?

Watch 3 times for your sins over weekend for
penance
http://eatingacademy.com/media/videos-peter-likes

DaithiMC

AstraMonti wrote: »

I am not sold on that tbh, it all has with how metabolic for you the calories you are eating are. (this sounds like yoda is talking)

Agreed that one of the things that came out of the programme is that we are very complex systems. I had been following the fasting research as it is related to my work and I came across papers comparing IF with Caloric Restriction (CR) which indicated that while IF was better at modulating things like IGF1 and other biomarkers CR was superior for weight loss. The difference was not much so IF was considered ok to recommend as a weight loss mode and has the benefits of better modulation of the hormonal system.

Here is one reference to a mouse study indicating CR as having a marginally better score on weight loss. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18444137

The complexity arises when energy and activity are taken into consideration as I made the error above of not considering fasting followed by exercise and was considering the carb uptake earlier in the day and moving to a ketogenic diet (I didn't mean ketogenic state but was not clear on that) later in the day.

I also watched some of the Noakes video links posted above and would agree with his contention that eating, like exercise drives the inflammatory process, i.e., you will hear trainers say "exercise damages and you get fit when you rest!" I think eating should be considered an exercise and so volume of food should be restricted for weight loss/feel good goals. The type of food in addition to the volume is as critical when an intense exercise regime is under consideration, whereas the volume of food in a less active subject (provided it is not all 50:50 food is probably fine).

Though Noakes did suggest that fasting increased longevity, my reading of the research is that that benefit is seen in mice and rats but does not translate to primates.

Not speaking like Yoda (that's what LC dieting does to you ) but I'm definitely rambling now so I'll stop!

DaithiMC

petethedrummer wrote: »

The doctor takes a baseline fasted reading. then you take a sugary drink. Then he/she takes a reading approx 5 mins later.

You'll note they give you glucose to measure this. not FAT. because FAT doesn't spike your blood sugar like sugar does.

There are two different tests (these days three including A1c) used in the diagnosis of diabetes, Fasting Plasma Glucose (FPG - does not need the intake of a sugary drink) and an Oral Glucose Tolerance Test (OGTT - this is the test done in the programme).

FPG targets according to the 2009 American Diabetes Association are >=7.0 mmol/L OR

2-h Glucose (Venous plasma glucose 2-h after ingestion of 75g of an oral glucose load) >= 11.1 mmol/L

What was not clear to me was that he seemed to be citing the prediabetes numbers for the A1c (>= 5.7%) test and we did not see him do that, i.e., what I saw was the OGTT test. I am not a Doc so not sure if these numbers are commutable.

http://www.diabetes.org/diabetes-basics/diagnosis/

duffyshuffle

ryan_sherlock wrote: »

That is so 2012

Yeah - I enjoy the fatty coffee - many a 5hr day in the mountains has been fuelled by it. (and many more work days where I need to concentrate all day)

ha ha, it, is, like, so mainstream now

I find the concentration level off it is insane, as well as the fuel for training!

Thanks

petethedrummer

Here's Andreas Einfeldt's take on the show
http://www.dietdoctor.com/sugar-vs-fat-on-bbc-which-is-worse

Interestingly from the comments section:

PhilT
January 31 10:57 6
The statement made on the program about "muscle mass" was incorrect, the BodPod does not measure muscle mass only fat and fat-free mass (FFM) - it is incapable of differentiating water from muscle from bone, for that you need an MRI, DEXA or similar imaging device, or an autopsy, or a nitrogen balance study.

So the low carb guy lost 1.5kg of fat and 2kg of FFM, the high carb guy 0.5 kg of each. They didn't start from the same body composition or weight.

AstraMonti

http://www.biomedcentral.com/1741-7007/12/8

I’d like to ask you one last question, on fructose. You’ve written recently on the very topical issue of whether fructose is a particularly important cause of metabolic disease [4] and, as we now know, with possible very strong links to cancer. As I understand it, sucrose - and even other carbohydrates - in excess can be metabolized to fructose. So if we’re just eating too much carbohydrate generally, does it really matter whether it’s fructose or any other kind?

It turns out that it does matter. Quite honestly, four or five years ago I was in your camp of assuming, you know - fructose, glucose, they have exactly the same number of calories per gram, they can be interconverted instantly inside most cells, so what does it matter? The answer is, it’s really important - and quite striking - because the liver differentially metabolizes fructose and glucose. This specialization is pretty much unique to the liver; in any other cell, the fructose and glucose are pretty much interchanged quite rapidly. But liver does not have hexokinase, so it cannot phosphorylate fructose at the six position. This is in contrast to glucose, which can be phosphorylated at the six position in the liver by glucokinase to make glucose-6-phosphate, which is then converted to fructose-6-phosphate. And that is then phosphorylated at the one position by phosphofructokinase (PFK), which is - and here’s the key point - the ultimate gatekeeper for entering glycolysis. In contrast, fructose that enters the liver is phosphorylated at the one position by fructokinase (also called ketohexokinase) to make fructose-1-phosphate rather than fructose-6-phosphate. The liver is almost unique in regard to the ability to differentially metabolize glucose and fructose.

And that matters because…?

That matters because once it’s phosphorylated at the one position, fructose can be a substrate for aldolase, and shoot down the glycolytic pathway, bypassing the gatekeeper PFK, which is the control step for going into glycolysis. In most tissues, if the cell finds itself with plenty of ATP and plenty of citrate (the building blocks for making fatty acids), it will stop all flux through glycolysis because ATP and citrate inhibit PFK - a classic example of a metabolic negative feedback control. So the glucose that enters the cell can still get phosphorylated but it doesn’t go down glycolysis and doesn’t get converted to fat but rather gets stored as glycogen or exits the cell.

But in the liver, fructose bypasses that whole machinery, because it doesn’t need PFK; it gets phosphorylated at the one position directly, without phosphorylation of the six position first and, as a consequence, now becomes a substrate for aldolase, and it produces even higher levels of ATP and citrate that go on to make fatty acids. No matter how much you’ve eaten, you will still make more fat if you eat fructose.

There are two other things about fructose that make it different from glucose. One is that all the fructose you eat is cleared on its first pass through the liver. In other words, the liver scarfs up all the fructose and immediately converts it to fat, while glucose stays in the bloodstream for some period of time. That’s why we call starches hyperglycemic molecules; they keep glucose levels in your bloodstream high for a long time. That is good for the brain - the brain loves to eat glucose. It’s good for the muscle. But fructose doesn’t actually supply any energy to your brain at all, it doesn’t supply any energy to your muscle; it only gets stored as fat. That’s really quite remarkable, if you think about it. You eat sucrose - one molecule of glucose and one molecule of fructose - that glucose is being used by your muscle and your brain - your brain loves getting that glucose - but the fructose is all just getting stored as fat.

But does it also mean that you get hungrier - you want more sugar if you’re using fructose rather than glucose?

Exactly. You would have to eat exactly twice as much sucrose as starch to get the same amount of energy supplied to your muscle and brain. The brain realizes that, it keeps relaying a feedback so that the more sugar you eat, the more it wants you to eat. Hence the addiction to sweetness. That’s the dangerous thing about this molecule.

You might ask - well why did we evolve such a complicated system? Why does only the liver feed fructose straight into fat? I think it’s quite clear why this happens. We have a symbiotic relationship with plants. Plants want to spread their seeds around, so they surround them with fructose. High-fructose material surrounding the seeds gets us and other animals to eat them and this craving of fructose makes us eat them a lot and we end up carrying their seeds around and spreading them. But at the same time, it gives us an advantage because those fruits ripen just at the end of the growing season, which generally means, in almost all environments, that you’re not going to have much to eat over the next few months. So the best way to survive is to convert everything you eat at that time into fat. That is the long-term storage mechanism that allows you to survive until the next growing season. That’s why fructose was spectacular for us 10,000 years ago, getting us through these famines that we faced every year. But today we don’t have famines and so we just get fat.

Does this put a whole new gloss on Eve and that apple?

You’d probably have to eat about a bushel of apples to get the same amount of fructose as in a 40 oz Coke, which we’re trying to ban here in New York City unsuccessfully.

And here’s an additional comment. The way we’ve attempted to avoid this problem is by using artificial sweeteners. The problem with those is that a disconnect ultimately develops between the amount of sweetness the brain tastes and how much glucose ends up coming to the brain.

So the brain figures you have to eat more and more and more sweetness in order to get any calories out of it. The consequence of people eating lots of sweeteners, no matter what they are - whether they’re natural or unnatural - is that it increases the addiction for the sweetness. As a consequence, at the end of the day, your brain says, 'OK, at some point I need some glucose here'. And then you eat an entire cake, because nobody can hold out in the end. The only way really to prevent this problem - to break the addiction - is to go completely cold turkey and go off all sweeteners - artificial as well as fructose. Eventually the brain resets itself and you don’t crave it as much.

ROK ON

Can I be mischevious and ask the various folks on this blog what they want to get out of this dietary way of living with respect to their cycling goals for 2014?

Is this a general healthy living way of life or is it of relevance to cycling.
Will you be better racers, tters, climbers, audaxers as a benefit of this diet.

Or is it simply about debunking the myth that carb loading and gel consumption are necessary for an endurance sport?

niceonetom

ROK ON wrote: »

Can I be mischevious and ask the various folks on this blog what they want to get out of this dietary way of living with respect to their cycling goals for 2014?

Is this a general healthy living way of life or is it of relevance to cycling.
Will you be better racers, tters, climbers, audaxers as a benefit of this diet.

Or is it simply about debunking the myth that carb loading and gel consumption are necessary for an endurance sport?

Good question. I've been wondering what Astra's goals were given how much time and energy he has given to crossfit / general gym work. I've done a bit of weights and stuff but purely with a view to improving cycling performance down the line.

My reasons for going LCHF are essentially about improving race results - I've have no allergies, intolerances or digestive issues from which to seek respite and I'm not overweight by any normal standard. I'm not interested in "wellness" as it's never been an issue for me and if it were I certainly wouldn't ride the bike as much as I do - that can't be healthy.

That said, I'm a cyclist so normal standards of weight don't apply: I want to be lighter or at least have better body composition at the same weight. On that front I am now a couple of kg lighter and appreciably leaner than I was this time last year. Score one for LCHF.

The other aspect I would hope to make improvements would be endurance - I've never struggled to complete any distance I've set out upon but the idea of glycogen sparing though improved fat metabolism is appealing for those of us aiming to have something left after 3+ hours of racing. Burning less sugar may also help with stage racing if we're not having to totally empty the tank every stage and deal with the resulting metabolic catch-up or inflammation. On that front, well, I'm able to do any club spin I've been on with just bacon and eggs while those around me nibble throughout. Whether that means anything is still to be seen. I haven't raced yet and haven't even done the volume of really hard training to know whether that spared glycogen will be of any use to me when the hammer drops.

I'm at a crossroads now as the racing season begins, trying to decide how much to persist with LCHF or go back to some sort of paleo-ish, slow-carb / targeted carb / zone approach that might add a bit of nitro to my diesel engine.

AstraMonti

niceonetom wrote: »

Good question. I've been wondering what Astra's goals were given how much time and energy he has given to crossfit / general gym work.

Well.. a growing foetus has massively changed all plans. I thought I could give A4 a proper run this year but it's not going to happen now. Now I am only training for the enjoyment of it, and I might do a bit of club racing, maybe a couple of Audax spins too. I like crossfit a bit more than I should have as you can see results week in week out. Time has already start vanishing fast though.

I 've never has any digestive issues either, I could eat cheetos all day followed by mars bars and still be fine, obviously not a sustained model. I was getting tired doing simple tasks and I needed to eat every 2hours something, that was either a sandwich or a sweet of some sort. LCHF has given me a way to reduce my sugar intake by a big proportion of what I was eating; I still have some but nothing comparable. I am also eating more vegs and more fish. I feel and am leaner than before.

What I am noticing recently is that my lactate thresholds have been reduced, I can much more easily and faster reach the red zone but I can stay there longer. If I stay longer though I take a shit load of time to recover. It doesn't matter if I am on the bike or in the gym, Once I get to my limit and try to sustain any pace in there I am done for the next 5mins at least. I am not sure if that's down to diet or anything else.

From the reading I 've done so far I think you need a certain amount of carbs to race due to the intensity. I think you are more than capable in racing A3/A4 without any food, but you are in a different league all together. I would suggest to try to simulate a couple of races, obviously you are not able to copy one, but do a 2h spin, broken as:
0-15mins 95%
15-100mins 80% with 3-4 good drills
100-120 at your max.

Go with food, no food, carbs, no carbs and compare the results. Or you can do that in the first couple of races, depends if you are looking to hit podium fast or not.

ford2600

Good question ROK ON.

From a cycling perspective I'm the only non racing cyclist here, my goals this year are audax, Easter Fleche, mf1200 and whatever else time allows.
Have gone from having to eat before getting on bike to doing up to 110km on empty and 185km on just breakfast. Still unsure on role of carbs for multi day events/training.
What brought me here was in no order
Health concerns, family history of cardiovascular disease
Watching many guys doing big mileage not being able to shed weight

Will do review with doc in July when I'll be low carb for 12 months

petethedrummer

My cycling goal is to finally get the flock out of A4 on points. Though that is dependent on injuries rather than diet. If my leg keeps locking up I might just give up racing.

I am persisting with LCHF because:
1. It makes weight management a doddle, though I'll probably never be at the pointy end of a race where rider weight is an issue.
2. Seems to keep my asthma symptoms greatly reduced.
3. Recovery time seems to be reduced (I train less often but harder these days, so hard to do a like for like).
4. Day to day life is less complicated when I'm not chasing carb hunger.

ROK ON

Pete

I have also found that regular short intense training sessions seem to be easier to recover from relative to long sessions (regardless of intensity).

Billycake

I'm not a regular contributor to the thread but I follow it. I've been LCHF for about 7 months or so. I was racing A4 for the last 3 years but this year I'm with the IVCA as I fancied moving on from being beaten by 20 year olds.
I originally started LCHF as I'd spent years watching what I ate (even went through a phase of weighing everything), taking in X amout of carbs as per some expert and perceived wisdom but still my weight always stayed about the same no matter how much training I did. I was never heavy but like all of us I'm a cyclist and it mattered to me!!
I've now dropped 2kgs, got much leaner and generally feel much better on LCHF. I've read and listened to a lot about LCHF and the science makes sense in my head so I'll be staying on it for the foreseeable.
I still eat carbs but it's targeted around my training now if I'm doing intense efforts or similiar. I too seem to have noticed a drop off in FTP but like Astra Monti, I'm not sure if it's the LCHF or I just haven't dialled in the carb timing / amount properly yet.
I can do 100km plus rides now before breakfast which just blows me away when I think back to all of the gels or drinks etc that I used to take for those rides. We are all capable of a lot more than we think we are - that's something that I've taken away from LCHF and it's really changed the way I look at lots of stuff in life now.

Chips Lovell

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/health/single-hit-of-heroin-contains-six-spoons-of-sugar-2014020583256

Ole Rodrigo

New Scientist weighing in :

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22129540.500-sugar-on-trial-what-you-really-need-to-know.html?page=2

AstraMonti

Another interesting read around training: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1600-0838.2012.01485.x/full

The present study indicates that organizing endurance training into a 1-week five-session HIT block followed by 3 weeks of one HIT session a week and a general focus on low-intensity training results in superior adaptations compared with 4 weeks of traditional organization with two weekly HIT sessions interspersed with low-intensity training. This was evident from improvements in VO2max, Wmax and power output at 2 mmol/L [la−] in the BP group, and was underlined by the ES of the relative improvement of these variables, which revealed a large to moderate effect of performing BP training vs TRAD training. This superiority of BP was observed despite the total volume and intensity of the training being similar in the two modes of training organization. Importantly, the long-term effects of BP remains unknown.

ryan_sherlock

The one on, three off was basically bringing on a peak - I wouldn't read too much into it. Would love to have seen them retested another 2 weeks later...

niceonetom

ryan_sherlock wrote: »

The one on, three off was basically bringing on a peak - I wouldn't read too much into it. Would love to have seen them retested another 2 weeks later...

So you're reading the it as being like a crash block of training followed by a 3 week taper? What would you guess a test 2 weeks later would reveal? The two groups would show less divergence?

niceonetom

My favourite new beverage: bulletproof cocoa.

ryan_sherlock

niceonetom wrote: »

So you're reading the it as being like a crash block of training followed by a 3 week taper? What would you guess a test 2 weeks later would reveal? The two groups would show less divergence?

Lets say they continued (ie. group one another two weeks with a low amount of intensity, while the other continued), I would say the second group would possibly test better.

Neither is optimal

niceonetom

ryan_sherlock wrote: »

Neither is optimal

Rather begging the question, what is?

ryan_sherlock

niceonetom wrote: »

Rather begging the question, what is?

Like the LCHF thing - all about context, goals (maximum power for 5 minutes or maximum chance of winning) etc. Many ways to skin a cat and also, what works for a rider in the past, isn't always the best thing for the future. Very individual.

AstraMonti

I took the garmin with the HR strap on the gym with me to see how much I am actually suffering. Looks like a Z3-Z4 spin.

This is wednesday which wasn't too much cardio but more lifting.



And this is yesterday, which started with a warmup on the bikes and then 3-4min blocks of chin ups, tractor tire lifting and running, more chin ups, burpees with squat jump on box, ropes, sit ups and ended with kettlebell abs exercises.

AstraMonti

And another nail for sugar.

https://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1819573

Most US adults consume more added sugar than is recommended for a healthy diet. We observed a significant relationship between added sugar consumption and increased risk for CVD mortality.

I am not into conspiracy theories but isn't it a little bit weird that they all suddenly started talking about the bad sugar at more or less the same time?

ford2600

Slow cooked lamb(the neck of a mountain lamb) stew

Stew got a further 4 hrs of low heat before dinner. It was unbelievably good. Very fatty cut.
No idea what nutrients are in marrow but it is really good

Had two really nice rib eyes during the week, but for me nothing compares to lamb.

AstraMonti

I made the meatza today, yummy thing

1kg of minced meat with spices and 2 eggs



Topped with mozzarela, cheddar salami slices, peppers and chilli



I only managed two slices..

ford2600

I only managed two slices..

Offer asking on rest if you'll post:D

AstraMonti

Haha! Here is the recipe btw: http://kghealth.blogspot.ie/2013/03/meetza-isthe-low-carb-pizza.html

Unless you like your meat raw then the times he is giving are not enough, I had to leave it twice than what he says.

ford2600

While on food, always found chicken boring, don't eat skin lean breast meat advice didn't help.

I now do the opposite, remove breast meat and eat the rest(everything bar carcass!)

With some butter, chilli, lemon, garlic and whatever veg is there it is really nice. Pleanty salt on skin helps to brown it.

In case I miss any fat I don't bother with roasting dish plate transfer...

On Irish beef/dairy production there are some famers now doing zero graze feeding. Can't be good for food quality. Not sure how much it will catch on though.

ford2600

It doesn't have to be all meat and cheese...

Desert: 85% dark chocolate melted in bowl with home oven roasted hazel nuts.

Cool in fridge. Simple and very tasty